A Study of the Role of Prior Attitude and Persuasion Knowledge in the Effect Process of Mobile Application Contents for Public Interest

Abstract

This study explores the effect of consumers' prior smoking attitudes and persuasion knowledge in the effect process of corporate social responsibility communication. Preceded by a pilot study, a survey of consumers' perception is conducted toward a mobile CSR application. First, consumers' prior smoking attitudes and persuasion knowledge are revealed to have interaction effects on reputation of the tobacco company. Second, interactivity properties of the branded content and consumers' persuasion knowledge have interaction effect on the perceived authenticity of the company. Toward reputation, interactivity of the branded content and consumers' persuasion knowledge have no significant interaction effect, on the other hand, the level(high/low) of branded content has the direct effect on reputation. Practical implications, limitations and future study directions are discussed.